Add Hostname To Firefox Titlebar

Martin Brinkmann
Dec 10, 2008
Updated • Oct 8, 2012
Firefox, Firefox add-ons
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The hostname is basically the root url of a website, for Ghacks it would be www.ghacks.net. Adding that information to the titlebar has two apparent benefits. Number one is related to phishing. Antiphishing measures have been implemented in many web browsers and security software programs which could lead to the assumption that "yet another" way of helping with the identification of phishing sites might be overkill.

Experienced users on the other hand know that no software or script will reach an accuracy of 100%. There will always be false positives and negatives meaning regular websites that are identified as phishing websites (although they are not) and phishing websites that are not identified as such. The latter is obviously more devastating for the user, the former for the webmaster of the affected website.

Adding the hostname to the titlebar gives you the opportunity to quickly check if you are on the right website. This in addition to other indicators can aid you tremendously. More tips can be found at our Phishing Explained article.

There is however another benefit for users who work with password managers like KeePass that make use of the title for identification purposes.

Hostname in Title Bar (via Technix Update) is an experimental Firefox add-on which means that you have to sign in to the Mozilla website before you are allowed to download and install it. The extension is still available after all those years, which is a good sign. Aero Windows Title is an alternative that is adding the same functionality to the web browser. The latter adds the window title back on Windows Vista, 7 or Windows 8 if the Firefox menu button is displayed on the system.

Hostname in title bar on the other hand displays the hostname and the page title in the Firefox web browser, making it the better add-on because of it.

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Comments

  1. mom said on July 15, 2009 at 4:29 pm
    Reply

    Please give feature to put entire URL in titlebar after page title

    great help to low tech parents monitoring kid applications

  2. Jojo said on December 11, 2008 at 2:45 am
    Reply

    This works nicely with the date and time which I have in the right portion of all windows.

  3. Bill said on December 11, 2008 at 1:02 am
    Reply

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